In recent years, airbag devices have become standard equipment for most passenger car motor vehicles. The airbag device is a safety device activated in response to an emergency event such as a vehicle collision and inflated and deployed by gas pressure for receiving and protecting an occupant. There are different kinds of airbag devices for various installation locations or uses. For example, a front driver side airbag is provided in the center of the steering at the driver seat in order to protect the occupant in the front seat against an impact occurring mainly in the front-back direction, and a passenger airbag is provided near a front passenger seat at the instrument panel or any of other locations. In addition, a curtain airbag that is inflated and deployed along the side windows is provided at the wall part near the roof in order to protect occupants in the front and back seats against a side collision and a subsequent roll over (turn over), and a side airbag that is inflated and deployed just beside an occupant is provided at a side of the seat.
The airbag device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H06-80057 is adaptable to a vehicle having three front seats. In that disclosure, a third airbag unit configured to restrain the occupant in a center seat is inflated and deployed in addition to a first airbag unit configured to restrain the occupant in a driver's seat, a second airbag unit configured to restrain the occupant in a front passenger seat. The third airbag unit is provided in the vicinity of a ceiling sun visor and configured to be inflated and deployed in the downward direction toward between the occupant in the center seat and the instrument panel.
Presently, there has been a demand for airbag devices configured to cope with irregular collisions and impacts including a so-called oblique collision in which impacts occur on a vehicle in a direction obliquely from the front or the back of the vehicle. In an oblique collision, an occupant may move into an airbag cushion (hereinafter simply as “a cushion”) present in front of the seat in an irregular behavior such as movement in an oblique direction. In the airbag configuration disclosed in previously identified background reference for example, the occupant in the front passenger seat may contact the third airbag unit present in the front on the inner side in the vehicle-widthwise direction (hereinafter simply as “the vehicle inner side”). However, it would be difficult to provide sufficient occupant restraining force and reducing injury values related to the occupant simply by providing an additional cushion obliquely in front of the occupant.
In view of the problem, it is an object of the present invention to provide an airbag device capable of restraining an occupant in a stable position in an oblique collision and reducing injury values related to the occupant.